The : 11 Effect and Expression in Nineteenth-Century Florentine Painting* J • I l NORMA F. BROUDE

In 1855, the Italian artists , Saverio Alta­ attracted them in 1855 to the relatively conservative French mura, and visited to see the World's painters cited above or, indeed, to isolate any corresponding Fair. They returned to with descriptions of the "violent tendency in the contemporary art of France that could have • chiaroscuro" that they had seen and admired in the paintings provided their inspiration. There is considerable reason to of Decamps, Troyon, and Rosa Bonheur, and it was upon the believe, in fact, that the current conception of the macchia is basis of th~ir reports that a number of their friends-the art­ incorrect and unfounded, and that to recover its original mean­ ists who gathered at the Caffe Michelangiolo in -be­ ing we must turn to the sources of the aesthetic in French gan to experiment and to evolve for themselves the aesthetic . idea which they called the macchia. The word macchia, a word with a time-honored tradition in The- idea that the word macchia, for the Macchiaioli, re­ the literature of history and criticism,2 lends itself ferred originally to a mode of sketchlike execution has been to a variety of constructions, among them "sketch" and fostered in our century by the increasing popularity of a cer­ "patch,"3 and it was precisely because of these multiple mean­ tain group of these artists' works-their plein air studies­ ings that the name derived from the word was seized upon in and by the stylistic qualities which these studies display. These the early 1860's by the conservative press in Florence and ap­ striking works, upon which the reputation of the Macchiaioli plied in derision to this progressive group of artists. Though today largely rests,5 are small, broadly conceived, and freshly originally popularized by a hostile critic, the name was to gain executed in terms of vivid and emphatic tonal oppositions. Il­ wide acceptance, even among the artists themselves. Today, it lustrated here are two well-known examples of the type: Gio­ is commonly understood as a description of the group's pro­ vanni Fattori's French Soldiers (Fig. 1), a record of the artist's gram and style, and the "Macchiaioli" are known, accordingly, observations of the soldiers quartered on the outskirts of as artists "whose procedure, as their name implies, was to Florence in 1859, and Giuseppe Abbati's Cloister (Fig. 2), paint in 'patches' or 'blobs' of color."4 painted in Florence, in the cloister of Santa Croce, around In view of the circumstances surrounding the group's for­ 1862. Executed on small panels, the first, typically, of wood, mation, this prevailing characterization seems puzzling and the second of cardboard, both were inspired by the artists' inappropriate. For if the Macchiaioli are to be approached as immediate visual experiences of the natural world and display artists who were committed to a procedure of painting in a concern for the effects of strong sunlight upon form and "patches," it becomes impossible to explain what might have color. In both, the mode .of execution employed is clearly re-

* This article presents the substance of several chapters from a dis­ piu eccellenti pittori . .. , ed. Milanesi, Florence, 1878-85, vn, 452). sertation prepared in the Department of Ar.t History and Archaeology 3 According to a dictionary published in 1852, the word macchia could at Columbia University, directed by Professor Theodore Reff, and be interpreted variously as spot or stain, sketch (abbozzo) or brush­ undertaken with the assistance of a departmental Summer Travel land (boscaglia). The meaning of the word in relation to painting is Grant (1964) and a Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship (1965- explained as follows: "I pi ttori usano questa voce per esprimere Ia 66). qualita d'alcuni disegni, ed alcuna volta anche Pitture fatte con Among those who assisted me during the course of my work, I istraordinario facilita e con un tale accordamento e freschezza senza should like to express my gratitude in particular to Signor Lamberto molta matita o colore, e in tal modo che quasi pare-che ella non da Vitali of Milan for facilitating my research by generously helping to mano d'artefice· rna da per se stessa sia apparita sui foglio o sulla tela make available to me several important collections of pictures and e dicono: 'Questa e una bella macchia.' " The same dictionary defines documents. the word Macchiajuolo as "one who removes stains" or "one who 1 This report of the events surrounding the birth of the movement ap­ frequents the brushlands" ("Colui che esercita l'arte di cavar Ie pears in several reliable witness accounts. See T. Signorini, "Cose macchie.-Che frequenta le macchie, doe le boscaglie."-Vocabo­ d'arte," II Risorgimento, 1874, in E. Seman~, , lario universale della lingua italiana, Mantua, v, 1852, 8.) Milan, 1926, 256; C. Boito, Scultura e pittura d'oggi, Turin, 1877, 4 R. Skira-Venturi, Italian Painting from Caravaggio to Modigliani, 208-09; T. Signorini, Caricaturisti e caricaturati a! Caffe Michel­ New York, 1952, 113. angiolo, Florence, 1952, 88 (1st ed., Florence, 1893); D. Martelli, "Ro­ 5 The centenary exhibition of the Macchiaioli, held in 1956 at the Gal­ manticismo e realismo nelle arti rappresentative," ll Carriere Italiano, lery of in , was purposely limited to the exhibition Feb. 21, 1895, in Scritti d'arte di , ed. A. Boschetto, of only such works, in order, so the catalogue stated, that the public Florence, 1952, 204. might be presented with the best and most characteristic examples of 2 Vasari uses it in connection with the late work of Titian (Le vite de' Macchiaioli painting (P. Bucarelli, I Macchiaioli, Rome, 1956, 22-23). 12 The Art Bulletin

ductive, with f~rm, "patch"-like strokes defining the forms and the artist as a leading exponent of the new movement in paint­ creating a flatness of design that characterizes the plein air ing and who criticized him for daring to display to the public, studies of all the artists associated with this group. "in an embryonic state," a work which "might be described as The seemingly patchlike mode of execution which has been no more than a simple sketch."7 observed in the plein air studies of the Macchiaioli, however, When we understand, however, which paintings caused the does not account for the name that was applied to the group controversy and criticism that originally surrounded the Mac­ nor really serve to explain its aesthetic. A crucial fact, too often chiaioli, the substance of these contemporary criticisms be­ overlooked in modern scholarship, is that during the nine­ comes meaningful despite apparent contradictions, and the . teenth century these studies were entirely unknown outside real basis upon which they were made becomes easier to detect. ,. the artists' immediate circle and were not themselves responsi­ The most interesting and fruitful of our documentary sources ble for the controversies which the macchia initially provoked. in this respect is an article which appeared on November 3,

p As the catalogues of the exhibitions in which the Macchiaioli 1862, in the Florentine journal Gazzetta del Popolo, by a participated make clear, these were not the works which the journalist who signed himself "Luigi."8 A caustic attack upon Macchiaioli chose to send to public exhibitions, there to be the tendencies of certain of the artists whose works were discussed and attacked as the characteristic product of their currently on exhibit at the annual Promotrice, the article was aesthetic.6 Instead, the works which nineteenth-century crit­ conceived in response to a review of the exhibition published ics angrily condemned as "sketch"-like and "unfinished" were, anonymously some two weeks earlier by one of the artists, in fact, according to the testimony of the catalogues, fairly elab­ Telemaco Signorini.9 About these young artists, the most radi­ orate studio pieces which in most cases offer to the modern eye cal of whom he identified as and the above­ little that might distinguish them from the more orthodox and named Signorini, the critic of the Gazzetta del Popolo wrote: acceptable academic productions of their day. Presenting a striking contrast to the richly stroked, flattened surfaces of For some time, there has been talk among artists of a new school the studies, these lesser-known works of the Macchiaioli (of which has grown up and which has been called the school of the Macchiaioli. The painting of this school has made its appearance which, nevertheless, a sizable body is extant) are relatively frequently in the exhibitions of the Society for the Promotion of large, dryly executed paintings, tightly descriptive or anec­ the Arts, and this year, too, it is well represented. But, the reader dotal in character. As examples we may cite still other works will say, if he himself is not an prtist, what are these Macchiaioli? of Fattori and Abbati, Fattori's Cavalry Charge at Montebello Permit me to explain. They are young artists, some of whom are of 1862 (Fig. 3) and Abbati's Cloister of Santa Croce, also of undeniably gifted, but who have taken it into their heads to reform art, starting from the principle that effect is everything. Have you 1862 4). (Fig. We are hard put to reconcile the popular notion ever met someone who shows you his snuff-box and insists that in of the macchia as a proto-impressionistic, patchlike mode of the grain and various stainings [macchie] of the wood he can execution with the stylistic qualities displayed by these paint­ recognize a small head, a little man, or a tiny horse? And the ings or by a work like Vincenzo Cabianca's Florentine Story­ small head, the little man, and the tiny horse are all there in those tellers of the Fourteenth Century (Fig. 5), which was exhib­ stainings of the wood! All you need do is imagine them! So it is with the details in the paintings of the Macchiaioli. In the heads ited in Florence at the Esposizione Nazionale in 1861. Nor of their figures, you look for the nose, mouth, eyes, and other fea­ can we easily explain the kind of criticism that was leveled at tures: what you see are shapeless patches [macchie senza forma]; this painting by Cabianca's contemporaries, who recognized the nose, mouth, and eyes are there all right-all you have to do is

6 The exhibitions referred to are those of the Florentine Promotrice, an Nov. 3, 1862. Reprinted in M. Borgiotti and E. Cecchi, Macchiaioli annual event which, on a local level, was somewhat analogous in its Toscani d'Europa, Florence, 1963, 23-25. The identity of the author is social and economic significance to the Paris Salon and was looked not known. Recently, Giardelli has offered the convincing hypothesis upon by Florentine artists of the younger as well as the older genera­ that "Luigi" was the pseudonym of Giuseppe Rigutini (1829-1903), a tion as an important outlet for their serious artistic efforts. The con­ noted linguist and philologist with a talent for the concise and biting clusions stated are based upon the catalogues of these exhibits cov­ epigram. Rigutini, active in the contemporary art world, was one of ering the forty-year period from 1850 to 1890, a substantial number the three editors of the Gazzetta del Popolo. (M. Giardelli, Silvestro of which are preserved as part of the Diego Martelli legacy in the Lega, Milan, 1965, 38 n. 1.) Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence. 9 "X" [Telemaco Signorini], "Alcune parole sulla Esposizione Artistica 7 P. Selvatico, "La pittura storica e sacra d'Italia all'Esposizione Na­ neiie sale deila Societa Promotrice," La Nuova Europa, anno II, No. zionale di Firenze nel 1861," Arte ed artisti, Padua, 1882, 51. In a 162, Oct. 19, 1862. Reprinted in Borgiotti and Cecchi, Macchiaioli similar vein, the author of a guidebook to the exposition wrote: "'I Toscani d'Europa, 21-23. On the question of the authorship of this novellieri italiani,' quadro del sig. Cabimi.ca, potrebbe essere un bel article and the one cited below, note 17, see Signorini's autobio­ quadro, se l'autore si fosse dato Ia pena di finirlo." ("Yorick" [Pier­ graphical letter of 1892 (Lettere dei Macchiaioli, ed. L. Vitali, Turin, Coccoluto Ferrigni], Viaggio attraverso l'Esposizione Italiana del1861, 1953, 114, 118 n. 14); also, Somare, Signorini, 32. Florence, 1861, 129.) 10 "Luigi," "Ciarle florentine," Macchiaioli Toscani d'Europa, 24. 8 "Luigi," "Ciarle florentine," Gazzetta del Popolo, anno II, No. 301, This and ail subsequent translations, unless otherwise indicated, MACCHIAIOLI 13

imagine them! When we pray for rain, we don't expect a flood: that but effetto. The significance of this observation becomes ap­ effect is necessary, no one would deny; but when the effect de­ parent if we consider that previously, upon the few occasions stroys the drawing and even the form, this is too much. If things when these artists had been referred to in print, the name ap­ continue at this rate, the Macchiaioli will end by painting with a 13 brush on the end of a pole and will scribble upon their canvases plied to them was not "Macchiaioli" but "Effettisti." Prior to from a respectable distance of five or six meters. In this way, they 1862, it would appear, both of these terms had been current will be certain of obtaining nothing but effect.10 among Florentine artists and critics as a means of descriptively labeling the new school and its tendencies. In launching his The earliest surviving application of the name Macchiaioli to own attack against the group, the critic of the Gazzetta del the artists whose identities have since become so inextricably Popolo chooses, understandably, to make use of the less pub­ connected with it is to be found here in Luigi's article. The licized and familiar but verbally more effective of the two name makes its formal appearance quite late in the history of names. When he puts aside the weapons of sarcasm and wit, what we now think of as the macchia movement, for, accord­ however, and attempts a meaningful analysis of the group and ing to a later statement by Signorini, the aesthetic principle its work, it is not to the word macchia that he turns. Instead, from which the movement derives its name was, by 1862, a' he resorts repeatedly to the juxtaposition of two words: form dead or dying issue in Florence for the progressive artists and effect. The Macchiaioli, he tells us, are characterized by whose allegiance to the aesthetic dated from the middle of the their adherence to "the principle that effect is everything." preceding decadeY Although Luigi, it would appear, was the Effect, in itself, he hastens to make clear, is not an undesirable first to use the name in print, it is unlikely that he deserves quality in painting. Nor is it a radical innovation introduced the credit usually accorded him for coining the term;12 the by the Macchiaioli and unknpwn to previous generations of name, as the wording of his introductory remark makes clear, artists. Rather, it is a familiar concept with a venerable tradi- had been circulating in artistic circles for some time ("Gia da ' tion, and he reminds us that the Venetian and Bolognese tempo si parla fra gli artisti di una nuova scuola che si e schools, as well as such recent Italian masters as Bezzuoli and formata, e che e stata chiamata dei Macchiajoli"). Insteaq of Morelli, all sought for "effect" in their art long before the inventing the name, Luigi much more likely was simply the advent of the Macchiaioli. The error of the latter group, Luigi first to popularize it by recognizing and exploiting its humor­ indicates, lies not simply in the use but in the exaggeration of ous and derogatory implications. The facile wit with which he a principle which is in itself perfectly acceptable. There must, plays upon the multiple meanings of the root word macchia he maintains, be a middle path between extremes, between lends rhetorical effectiveness to his disparaging characteriza­ "forms without effect and effect without forms," and he points tion of the Macchiaioli as artists who merely "sketch" out their to the work of several contemporary artists to support his pictures, substituting shapeless "patches" for descriptive detail. contention that it is possible "to obtain effect W,ithout aban­ Yet, to assume that these were the constructions which the doning form ... to achieve effect and light without neglecting Macchiaioli themselves had had in mind when they used the drawing and finish."14 word macchia would be, as we shall demonstrate, to take By "form," it seems, Luigi means the concept of "draw­ Luigi's joke far too literally. ing and finish": he accuses the Macchiaioli of having sacri­ The word which is used most often in Luigi's article to ficed drawing and finish for the sake of effect. characterize the aesthetic of the Macchiaioli is not macchia For the term "effect," however, which was indeed something

are my own. travers a l'Esposizione Italiana del 1861: "I signori Cabianca, Sig­ 11 Signorini, "Cose d'arte" (II Risorgimento, 1874), Somare, Signorini, norini e Borrani appartengono alia scuola novella degli effettisti ed 257. espongono tre quadri secondo Ia !oro coscienza. E sta bene.... Og­ 12 Giardelli, e.g., writes that Luigi is to be thanked for giving us the nuno pensa a modo suo. Ma alia scuola moderna degli effettisti si name Macchiaioli, a name which, prior to the appearance of Luigi's dovrebbe dire come della zelo: pas trap n'en faut" (Florence, 1861, article, "nessuno, in un significato siffatto, aveva ancora fatto stam­ 127). pare .e quasi certamente neppure pronunciato" (Giardelli, Silvestro In still another commentary on the Espos1zione Italiana, the group Lega, 37). was again referred to as the "effettisti": "Lamentammo il sorgere, 13 References to a group known as the "effettisti" appear as early as pericoloso a! buon gusto, d'una scuola di pittura che opportunamente 1857 in P. Selvatico'~ Intorno aile condizioni presenti delle arti del si denomina degli effettisti, perche costituita d'aspiranti a far presto disegno e all'influenza che vi esercitano le accademie artistiche, per guadagnare davvantaggio, creatori d'illusioni pittoriche le quali where the "effettisti" are described in rather vague terms along with conquidono il volga, vedute discoste; rna fa d'accostarti a quelle tele the "naturalisti" as misguided artists who place undue emphasis upon pressoche improvvisate, e ti avvedrai che ti somigliano abbozzi, tal inspired execution and eschew the use of preparatory cartoons e tanta v'e Ia spezzatura del disegno, e il getto dei colori" (T. Dan­ (, 1857, 73). dolo, Esposizione Nazionale del 1861," Panorama di Firenze, Milan, In 1861 the Livornese journalist "Yorick" (Pier-Coccoluto Ferrigni) 1863, 175). referred briefly but more specifically to the group in his Viaggio at- 14 "Luigi," "Ciarle fiorentine," Macchiaioli Toscani d'Europa, 24-25. ~-

14 The Art Bulletin

of a commonplace in the aesthetic vocabulary of the period, of research which artists had begun to talk about in 1855, the the writer offers no explicit definition. Conceived of as the original and perhaps exaggerated lessons of which have all, by broad ordering or unity of the chiaroscuro in a composition, now, been fully learned, modified, and incorporated into the effect was a concept that appeared frequently in nineteenth­ process of creating a serious work of modern art. While century handbo9ks of painting.15 As a quality that stands out members of the group, he acknowledges, may at one time above detail in the finished work, it was understood as that have placed excessive emphasis upon chiaroscuro in their element of the whole which contributed order and harmony paintings, this fault, he argues, is one for which they can no to the composition and was thought to be most readily per­ longer reasonably be brought to task. At this late stage in the ceived from a distance (hence the basis of Luigi's sarcastic movement's history, the substance of Luigi's attack is in Si­ prediction that the Macchiaioli would take to painting "with gnorini' s view grossly exaggerated if not· wholly unjustified.18 a brush on the end of a pole" in order "to obtain nothing but And when we stop, indeed, to consider the kind of painting effect"). Though generally acknowledged to be a necessary_ around which the macchia controversy originated-the paint­ ingredient of good painting, effect was nevertheless regarded ings on view at the annual exhibitions of the local Promotrice as an element which the artist should handle with considerable -we are prompted to share to some extent Signorini's atti­ caution. For while it was expected that effect would make its tude and to wonder if the differences between the "Macchiaioli presence felt in a work by standing out over detail, it was and their critics might not have been far more subtle in widely felt at the same time that the artist should never allow reality than the forceful language of Luigi's attack would at the effect to swallow detail in the work or to diminish signifi­ first seem to indicate. That a standard of "drawing and finish" cantly the representational clarity of the drawing. The neces­ was indeed operative in the macchia aesthetic and was used by sity, then, of striking just the right balance between effect the Macchiaioli as a measure of artistic achievement is in fact and detail created a serious problem for painters of the period. indicated by the terms in which Signorini was himself wont to Though an especially vital issue for the Romantic painter, it discuss and evaluate the work of his contemporaries. In the was a matter of professional concern for artists throughout Promotrice review which had initially provoked the debate, the century, for the conservative practitioner as well as the for example, Signorini had complimented one of the partici­ progressive, in France as well as in Italy.16 pating artists upon a painting in which certain of the figures That the concept of "effect" and, in particular, the problem were "extremely well drawn," while at the same time he con­ of reconciling within a work the conflicting demands of "ef­ demned the painting for color that was "too hard" and fect" and "form" were among the major issues at stake in the chiaroscuro that was "too sharp."19 Still another artist, clearly controversy between the Macchiaioli and their critics is sub­ labeled by Signorini as a "progressive," was commended, on stantiated by Telemaco Signorini in an article which he pub­ the other hand, for his ability to render convincingly "the ex­ lished in response to Luigi's attack. In this article, which ap­ tremely difficult effects of various kinds of illumination within peared in La Nuova Europa on November 19, 1862, Signorini, an interior" and for creating a picture which, regrettably, as spokesman for the so-called Macchiaioli, explained that the "would have been quite perfect, if some of the charming fig­ macchia "was only an excessively sli.arp mode of chiaroscuro, ures had been more carefully finished."20 the result of the need which artists then felt to free themselves It is from a close reading of this crucial debate between from the major defect of the old school, which had sacrificed Signorini and the critic of the Gazzetta del Popolo that we solidity and relief in its paintings in favor of an excessive derive some understanding of the real nature of the challenge transparency."17 In confirmation, moreover, of the date which, which the Macchiaioli presented to traditional values in the in a later statement, he would assign to the death of the mac­ Florentine art world of the late 1850's and early 1860's. The chia movement, we find that in 1862 Signorini is already macchia, the aesthetic to which the so-called Macchiaioli were speaking of the macchia as a concern of the past. It is a mode committed, was not founded, it is clear, upon a conscious pro-

15 See, e.g., one of the standard reference works of the period: J. N. peggio" (Signorini, "Cose d'arte," in Somare, Signorini, 256). Paillot de Montabert, Traite complet de Ia peinture, Paris, 1829-51, 1, 19 Signorini, "Alcune parole sulla Esposizione Artistica," Macchiaioli 153. Toscani d'Europa, 23. 16 On this problem, see, e.g., the statements by Delacroix, The Journal 20 Ibid., 22 (italics mine). of Eugene Delacroix, tr. W. Pach, New York, 1961, 151 (March 1, For Luigi's very similar evaluation of this painting (F. Buonamici's 1847), 292 (April13, 1853), 313 (May 21, 1853). Una caserma di Modena nella campagna del cinquantanove, present 17 "X" [Telemaco SignoriniJ, "Polemica artistica," La Nuova Europa, whereabouts unknown), see "Ciarle florentine," Macchiaioli Toscani anno II, No. 188, Nov. 19, 1862. Reprinted in Borgiotti and Cecchi, d'Europa, 24-25. Macchiaioli Toscani d'Europa, 26. 21 P. Mantz, "Artistes contemporains: Decamps," Gazette des Beaux­ 18 In future years, Signorini maintained this attitude in the face of the Arts, 12, 1862, 124. fairly harsh criticism to which the group was subjected. As he later 22 C. Baudelaire, "Salon de 1846," Curiosites esthetiques, ed. J. Crepet, complained, in retrospect and not without bitterness: " ... questi Paris, 1923, 134. artisti ... nulla di nuovo inventavano da suscitar tante arrabbiate 23 E. Fromentin, Une annee dans le Sahel, Paris, 1859, 269-70. polemiche per farsi chiamare innovatori, sovvertitori, facinorosi, e 24 Recognition of the efficacy of chiaroscuro as a vehicle for expression - - i

MACCHIAIOLI 15

gram of sketchy, "patch"-like execution, but upon the concept the master of orientalizing genre, Eugene From en tin wrote: of a chiaroscuro "effect," a manner of achieving compositional "Dans !'Orient, il a vu 1' effet: I' opposition nette, aigue, tran­ vigor and harmony, in a work through the arrangement of em­ chante des ombres et de Ia lumiere .... II a beaucoup imagine, phatic masses of light and shadow. It was upon the basis of beaucoup reve ... sa superiorite la plus incontestable lui vient what was considered to be their exaggerated handling of this de ce qu'il a comme tous les visionnaires, !'esprit rempli de element that the Macchiaioli were severely criticized b~ ·their metamorphoses.''23 contemporaries, who looked upon effect as a necessary and de­ The other French artists whose work had attracted the sirable ingredient of a painting only if it did not threaten to Italian visitors at the World's Fair in 1855 were the landscape obscure the form-i.e., the drawing, finish, and detail-of the painters of Barbizon. Serafino De Tivoli, himself primarily a painting. The Macchiaioli, it would appear, held much the same landscape painter, was particularly impressed by the art of view and were governed by similar values, differing essentially Rousseau and Troyon, and the impact their work had upon in their conception of the point at which in a given work effect him is apparent in the paintings he himself began to produce will encroach upon or destroy form. Thin though the line which shortly after his return to Florence (e.g., Fig. 7). In the work separated a revolutionary macchia work from more conserva­ of these older, Romantic painters, the power of chiaroscuro tive and acceptable pictures may now seem (compare, for ex­ effect not only to convey poetic mood, but even to evoke a ample, Figure 5, Cabianca's Storytellers, with Figure 6, the pic­ controlled range of emotional response, played an essential ture which was the critical and popular success of the 1861 role and, as we shall demonstrate, was a central feature in the Exposition), the emphasis which the Macchiaioli chose to already established aesthetic which the Florentines now at­ place upon effect in their works constituted, from the con­ tempted to assimilate.24 servative point of view, a serious challenge to the ultimate One of the earliest writers to explain and defend the ap­ ascendancy of "form" as a standard of value. It was this proach to landscape developed by the Barbizon School in the emphasis which was responsible for making the pictures that 1830's was the critic Thore-Biirger, in whose writings we find the Macchiaioli produced and exhibited-finished works by set forth the established Romantic view of the relationship their standards as well as our own-appear to their con­ between art and nature.25 According to Thore-Biirger and the temporaries as "simple sketches," to be ridiculed and con­ critics who would later join him in recognizing and extolling demned as intolerable deviations from the accepted norm. Theodore Rousseau as the leader of the Barbizon School, great With the macchia understood as effect created by chiaroscuro, landscape painting is born of the artist's love of nature and of the real significance of the events of 1855 becomes apparent, his ability to respond in a creative and poetic manner to the for effect was a major factor in the art of the French painters variety of experience that nature offers him.26 For Thore­ whose work the Macchiaioli admired and whose influence Biirger, accordingly, Rousseau was a poet, a sensitive soul, they openly acknowledged. Decamps, for example, well kno\;Vn capable of penetrating and sharing "toutes les passions de la among his contemporaries as "un clair-obscuriste de premier nature," and his skill as an artist lay in his ability to communi­ ordre,"21 was noted in his day for the technical facility with cate these deeply felt subjective experiences.27 Art, Thore which he could manage the most violent chiaroscuro contrasts. Burger pointed out, is not and cannot be the mere laborious It was not for technical skill alone, however, that the intense imitation of visual reality, for the transitory character of na­ and striking tonal effects of Decamps's pictures were admired, ture and her constantly changing effects have themselves but also, and more important, for the artist's ability to infuse taught the artist that faithful imitation of visual phenomena the light and shadow of his paintings with poetic and imagina­ is a physical impossibility.28 While the painting, then, cannot tive qualities. For Baudelaire, accordingly, Decamps's pictures, be a precise visual recording of what the artist has seen at any despite their excessive finish and detail, were nevertheless given moment, it can be a recording of what the artist has "pleins de poesie, et souvent de reverie."22 And of Decamps, felt at a given moment as the result of what he has seen. It can

figured prominently in the aesthetic philosophy of French Romanti­ nature philosophy of Schelling. See F. W. J. v. Schelling, "Dber das cism. A widespread and influenJial idea, it was probably derived Verhaltnis der Bildenden Kiinste zu der Natur" (1807), Werke, ed. from the 17th-century academic conception of the "modes," which 0. Weiss, 3 vols., Leipzig, 1907, III, 385-425. For a discussion of the was being revived during the 1820's in the writings of such theorists spread of Schelling's Naturphilosophie to France in the first decades as Humbert de Superville (Essai sur les signes inconditionnels dans of the 19th century, see S. Epstein, The Relationship of the American /'art, Leyden, 1827-32) and Paillot de Montabert (Traite complet de Luminists to Caspar David Friedrich, unpublished Master's Essay, Ia peinture, Paris, 1829). The idea that predictable states of feeling Columbia University, 1964, 29f. can be induced by specific arrangements or "modes" of line, color, and 26 For an introduction to the source material in this area, I am indebted tone prevailed well into the second half of the century and was to the following unpublished work: C. Duncan, Theodore Rousseau: popularized by such writers as David Sutter (Philosophie des Beaux­ His Critics and His Late Technique, Columbia University, May, 1965. Arts, Paris, 1858) and Charles Blanc (Grammaire des arts du dessin, 27 T. Thore, Salon de 1844, precede d'une lettre a Theodore Rousseau, Paris, 1867). See W. I. Homer, Seurat and the Science of Painting, Paris, 1844, 106. Cambridge, Mass., 1964,210-12. 28 Ibid., 107-08. 25 This view in its more transcendental form derives ultimately from the F I

16 The Art Bulletin

be an expression of his personal experience of nature, an ex­ painting which would provide for the viewer an emotional perience in which .he himself has played a poetic role by pro­ experience analogous to the one he himself had undergone in jecting into external reality his own, specifically human moods his own direct communion with nature. and emotions. The principle of all the arts, Thore-Bi.irger pro­ Such, at least, is the picture of Barbizon School method and claims, is poetry, and "la poesie n'est pas la nature, mais le intent that emerges from the important memorial article on sentiment que la nature inspire a !'artiste. C'est la nature re­ the life and work of Theodore Rousseau written by Philippe fletee dans !'esprit humain."29 Rousseau's words echo the Burty and published in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts in 1868.33 same thought: "La composition existe du moment que les Unlike the popular, academic painters of landscape, Burty objets representes ne le sont pas seulement pour eux-memes tells us, Rousseau had aimed to communicate the appeal of mais en vue de contenir, sous une apparence naturelle, the elements of nature-a bush, a stream, a group of trees les echos qu'ils ont places dans notre ame."30 reflected in water-"plutot par les impressions de lumiere, de The artists of the Barbizon School, then, set themselves the fraicheur, de serenite qu'ils degagent, que par le rendu minitieux task of creating an artificial, painted image, which could repro­ des brindelles, des cailloux, des flots, des branches qui les duce in the spectator the same emotional response that the ac­ constituent."34 Burty stresses the importance of light and tual view of a landscape had, at a given moment in time, pro­ shadow for Rousseau and tells of how the artist, in conversa­ duced in them.31 They could not hope to convey this emotion by tion, repeatedly discussed his idea of the compositional sub­ providing the spectator with an exact recording of the way the ordination of color to monochromatic tonal harmony. "A la landscape had looked at the moment in question, for nature rigueur," Rousseau advised a student, "vous pouvez vous does not stand still to pose for her portrait. They could, how­ passer de couleur, mais vous ne pouvez rien faire sans l'har­ ever, reasonably expect to capture, in a quick, on-the-spot monie."35 From Burty, we learn, too, that nature reveals her sketch, the broad tonal harmony of their visual impressions, different moments and moods to the sensitive observer the characteristic luminary effect through which nature, at through a series of characteristic luminary effects. These are any given moment, reveals her mood and weaves her poetic experienced and identified by each artist according to his own spell for the sensitive observer. A tendency to characterize poetic sensibility and mastered by means of an extensive pro­ the various states of nature in terms of luminary effects and a gram of plein air sketching. As the result of this self-imposed search for an equivalent technique with which to translate training of hand and eye, we are told, Rousseau had attained these effects into painting are in fact indicated by the frequent such a high degree of "facilite" that he could set to work in his appearance of the word effect in the subtitles given by certain studio and choose from his palette, without hesitation, "le ton of the Barbizon painters to their works-e.g., Rousseau's le plus juste et le plus seduisant" for the translation of his Effect of Late Afternoon, Autumn in the Landes, or Effect of feelings ontb canvas: "His long absorption in the study of Noontime, Stormy Sky.32 It would seem to follow, then, given daylight, of storms, of fogs, of the state of the sky at different the prevalent Romantic belief in the poetic and expressive moments of the year, had so to speak catalogued in his brain qualities of light and shadow, that the artist, having once the entire range of luminary effects. Hardly had he touched a captured the fugitive tonal patterns of nature's light at a given canvas than he had disengaged from it a painting."36 time and in a given place, might then consider himself in con­ A belief in the expressive analogy between the luminary trol of the element upon which, during the original visual "effects" observed in nature by the artist and the harmonious experience, his own emotional responses had largely depended. arrangement of chiaroscuro, or "effect," of his finished picture He could then return to the studio to build a poetic reconstruc­ appears to be the basis for a procedure evolved by Rousseau tion of the landscape upon the basic scaffolding of this im­ of building up his painting from a skeletal foundation of tonal mediately captured tonal effect, confident of producing a masses through a series of refinements and clarifications, a

29 Ibid., 3. n'est pas tout, non plus; le metier a ses rigueurs. A supposer qu'un 30 P. Dorbec, L'art du paysage en France. (Essai sur son evolution de la ensemble de taches heureuses produise un effet delicieux, encore fin du XVIIIe sitkle ala fin du Second Empire), Paris, 1925, 89. faut-il que l'oeil ait son compte, que le spectateur ne soit pas charge 31 In 1866, Charles Blanc explained the problem that certain artists had de supp!eer au vague des indications pittoresques, en achevant, par set themselves in the following way: "Faire que Ia chose peinte vous !'imagination, ce qu'on aura neglige de lui dire." ("Salon de 1866," procure la meme impression que vous aurait procuree la chose vue: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 21, 1866, 41 [italics mine].) voila dans quels termes certains artistes se posent le probleme, et ces 32 See R. Herbert, Barbizon Revisited, Boston, 1962, 29. artistes ne sont pas les moins distingues par !'intelligence." Signifi­ 33 "Theodore Rousseau," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 24, 1868, 305-25. cantly, these artists, whom Blanc identifies vaguely as naturalists and 34 Ibid., 308. followers of the Barbizon School, are criticized in terms very similar 35 Ibid., 317. fo those which Italian critics during these years were applying to the 36 Ibid., 313. Macchiaioli. Blanc continues: "Mais avec une telle maniere de com­ 37 Ibid., 317-18. Since Rousseau was the acknowledged leader of the prendre !'art, on risque fort d'en rester aux a peu pres, de sous-enten­ Barbizon School, his work and ideas have been emphasized here as dre !'execution et d'altther la monnaie du peintre, car enfin !'esprit typical of the methods and goals of the school as a whole. Similar MACCHIAIOLI 17

procedure which, Burty tells us, he one day explained by larger in scale, entitled A Sunny Day in La Spezia (Fig. 9).38 means of a visual demonstration. Declaring that "le tableau Here, out of the painterly impasto that defines the tpnal areas doit etre preablement fait dans notre cerveau/' and that the of the two-dimensional plane, there begins to emerge an painter's activity consists, consequently, not of creating a awareness of figures and architectonic structures within a picture upon his canvas, but of gradually lifting off the veils three-dimensional space. That this panet .too, however, was · under which the picture is hidden, Rousseau took one of his for Signorini just a sketch, an intermediate step in the· process finished works and covered it with a sheet of silken paper, of turning an immediately recorded tonal impression into a with the result that the small details of the picture were no completed work of art, is suggested by the existence of still longer discernible. He added a second sheet, and Burty ob­ another version of the same theme, a much larger canvas (Fig. served that "les silhouettes se massaient plus confus~ment." 10) in which the artist retained the same tm.i.al structure that With the third sheet of paper, only the most rudimentary had been worked out in the two earlier panels. But instead of values of light and shadow could still be perceived. As Burty the clearly marked impasto treatment and almost abstract tonal put it: "Le squelette du tableau etait la, dans sa robuste os­ masses of the smaller studies, the finished work ·presents a sature." Rousseau then explained: "If I wanted to complete my relatively smooth, flatly painted surface and a· wealth of de­ sketch [man ebaucheL I would follow in reverse the procedure scriptive detail. The "veils" which concealed the completed which we have just demonstrated. I would successively affirm· work are now removed. the light in much the way that an object detaches itself from The multiple stage method which we can follow in the de­ the nothingness which is darkness, when one climbs the steps velopment of Signorini's Sunny Day in La Spezia from a of a cave. Coloring is simply a matter of visual observation "skeleton" of tqnal masses to a finished representation of a and organization. It should always be left for the end."37 clearly readable scene is plainly analogous in conception to Rousseau's .method of first capturing, through an immediate the procedure described by Rousseau in his conversation with sketch, the luminary "effect" of a scene in nature and then Burty. Whether, as an extension of this analogy, the desire of working up his finished picture through a process of gradual the Macchiaioli to capture directly the luminary effects of na­ elaboration in the studio is similar in conception to the work­ ture and to preserve these in the pictorial effects of their ing method employed by the Macchiaioli, a method which be­ finished works was, like the similar desire of the Barbizon gan, similarly, with plein air sketching and ended in the painters whom they emulated, connected with a belief in the studio. Amol).g the works which permit a careful description of power of these natural and pictorial arrangements of light, the this procedure is a series of studies by Telemaco Signorini, pro­ one. to evoke feeling and emotion in the artist, the other to duced during the summer of 1860 when Signorini was work­ communicate these feelings and emotions to the spectator, is ing side by side with his friends Cabianca and Banti at La the question to which we must now turn. Spezia. Seeking to capture the immediate totality of his visual By the 1840's, Italian artists of the Northern and Neapoli­ experiences-the broad tonal structure of single objects or tan schools appear to have been familiar with the Romantic entire scenes-Signorini produced sketches during these conception of the poetic and expressive powers of chiaro­ months in which detail and local color are sacrificed to as­ scuro.39 In , furtherm~re, the Romantic attitude toward tonishingly simplified tonal patterns and to the vibrancy and landscape can be seen as early as the 1840's in the work of the sparkle of abrupt tonal transitions. Typical of these sketches Palizzi brothers, one of whom, Giuseppe, emigrated to France is a small cardboard panet about five by five inches, entitled in 1844 and settled at Fontainebleau.40 Naples, we should note, Study at La Spezia (Fig. 8L a study which at first seems al­ moreover, was an important source for certain of the- im­ most nonfigurative until it is compared side by side with yet pulses which later contributed to the development of the mac­ another work, similar in tonal arrangement though somewhat chia in Florence. Altamura and Morelli, two of the Paris pil-

concerns were voiced, however, by other French Romantic landscape See the catalogue of the studio sale: U. Ojetti, Telemaco Signorini painters. Consider, for example, these statements by Corot: "Je (Esposizione e vendita delle opere di Telemaco Signorini e delle cherche toujours a voir tout de suite l'effet." "Je commence toujours opere a lui donate da altri artisti dell'Ottocento), Milan, Galleria par Ie"s ombres, et c'est logique; car comme c'est ce qui vous frappe Pesaro, Jan., 1930, pis. crv, cxu. le plus, c'est aussi ce qu'on doit rendre d'abord." "La couleur pour 39 Interesting in this respect is the appearance of the following quota­ moi vient apres ... car j'aime avant tout !'ensemble, l'harmonie tion from C. Robert's Essai d'une philosophie de !'art (Paris, 1836) dans les tons." "Toujours Ia masse, !'ensemble, ce qui nous a frappes. in a book published in 1842 by the Venetian academician Pietro Ne jamais perdre Ia premiere impression qui nous a emus." "N'im­ Selvatico: "'Le clair-obscur est dans Ie peinture !'element poetique porte que! site, que! objet; soumettons-nous a !'impression premiere. par excellence, le fruit d'un regard enthousiaste et de Ia vue inspiree Si nous avons ete reellement touches, Ia sincerite de notre emotion des objets'" (Sull' educazione del pittore storico odierno italiano, passera chez les autres ..." (Corot raconte par lui-meme et par ses Padua, 1842, 269). amis, Geneva, 1946, r, 90, 97, 98, 83, 89). 40 E. Cecchi, Pittura italiana dell'Ottocento, Milan, 1946, 53-55. 38 Both these works were in Signorini's studio at the time of his death. rI 18 The Art Bulletin ~

grims of 1855, were both Neapolitan in origin, and in Naples leader of the Barbizon school/4 the artist is a man who is dis­ during the 1840's, as friends and disciples of the important tinguished from other men by his emotional responsiveness Neapolitan landscape and animal painter Filippo Palizzi, they and his poetic sensibility, by his ability first to respond to developed, quite early, the Romantic attitude toward art and nature in a deep and genuinely personal manner, and then to nature, an attitude which, later, in the 1850's, they were un­ communicate through the means of painting the emotional doubtedly instrumental in introducing to their Florentine range of his experiences. Cabianca is, for Signorini, such an friends. About the influence Palizzi had had upon his career, artist, for, we are told, he truly loves to contemplate nature. Morelli later wrote: "L'analisi che egli faceva sulla proprieta His role, moreover, is not simply a passive one, for, during di un colore sull'altro, mi educava ad osservare e comprendere these experiences shared with nature, he transforms her ac­ I' effetto e I' espressione."41 cording to his own temperament: he projects into his interpre­ In Florence itself, however, the tenets of French Romanti­ tation of nature "that state of repose and tranquility" which cism did not make their influence felt among artists until the. is most characteristic of his own mood and sensibility. In his late 1850's, and it is not, in fact, until1862 that we have any own works, too, Signorini's avowed intention has been the documentary indication of a widespread acceptance in progres­ study of nature in her most expressive attitudes-i.e., at those sive circles of some of the methods, aims, and concerns of the particular moments which inspire the artist to attribute his older French movement. In his 1862 review of the current own emotional responses to the visual facts of external reality. Promotrice, Telemaco Signorini singled out, among Vincenzo Fully aware of the artist's dependence upon purely formal Cabianca's six entries in the exhibit, one work, the Bridge on means for the communication of the emotions which have the Road to Poggio a Caiano (present whereabouts unknown), been inspired in him by his communion with the natural world, as the most successful, extolling it as "an ingenuous expression Signorini tells us, furthermore, that these "ideas," these emo­ of that state of repose and tranquility in which the artist most tional responses, must be rendered "through the means at the loved to contemplate and reproduce nature," and praising the disposal of art." And, as we have seen, effect derived from artist for his ability "to find a source of emotion where the chiaroscuro was the formal quality in painting upon which the majority see only dead and inanimate objects."42 Turning to Macchiaioli, like the Barbizon painters, laid the greatest stress. his own entries in the exhibit, Signorini, writing anonymously, In 1862, Signorini speaks separately of strong chiaroscuro freely described and evaluated his personal aims and achieve­ effect on the one hand and the communication of poetic mood ments. He wrote: and emotion on the other as major features or components of "macchiaiolo," or progressive art. Though a relationship be­ In the works of Signorini, while we must praise his intent, which tween the two, similar to the relationship which we have ob­ is to study nature and to find in her those moments which express a character and inspire a particular emotion, we cannot, at the same served in Barbizon painting, is implied, Signorini himself at time, refrain from criticizing a certain tendency he has to exag­ no time makes explicit the connection between these formal gerate this aim by inserting into his work something too subjective and expressive problems with which, he tells us, the Macchiaioli and individual, especially if we consider how difficult it is to render were preoccupied. To find an explicit statement of such a con· these ide'ls through the means at the disposal of art and to insure nection, we must turn to a discussion of the macchia written that the public, as well as the artist, can understand their signifi­ cance.43 some six years later by a man outside the immediate circle of the Florentine Macchiaioli-the Neapolitan aesthetician Vit­ In these passages, Signorini is vmcmg a typically Romantic torio lmbriani. conception of the artist's relationship to nature and to his own Vittorio lmbriani, a trained philosopher and aesthetician as work, a conception which had been formulated by the Barbi­ well as a critic of art, studied at Zurich with De Sanctis and zon painters in the 1830's and 1840's and disseminated by was the close friend of a number of the most progressive their critical supporters with ever-increasing vigor during the young Neapolitan artists, among them Filippo Palizzi.45 In 1850's and 1860's. For Signorini, as for Rousseau and the 1868, Imbriani wrote and published a small book entitled La French critics who considered Rousseau the originator and Quinta Promotrice, in which he reviewed the exhibition of

11 D. Morelli, "Filippo Palizzi e la scuola napoletana di pittura dopo il herently Romantic aspects of the aesthetic had begun to lose their 1840," La scuola napoletana di pittura nel secolo decimono ed altri validity for him, and, in the years that followed, he turned more and scritti d'arte, ed. B. Croce, Bari, 1915, 25 (italics mine). more toward the "objectivity" of a doctrinaire realism. 42 Signorini, "Alcune parole sulla Esposizione Artistica," Macchiaioli 44 These included, among others, Thon~-Biirger, Burty, Mantz, Blanc, Toscani d'Europa, 22. Gautier, About, Castagnary, and Astruc (Duncan, Theodore Rous­ 43 Ibid., 22. The dissatisfaction with certain qualities in his pictures seau, 4). an:d in his attitude toward nature that are "troppo soggettivo e indi­ 45 On Imbriani, his background, training, and philosophical orientation, viduale" which Signorini expresses here is significant, for it heralds see B. Croce, "Intorno all'unita delle arti: II. Una teoria della 'Mac­ an imminent change in his style. By 1862, the date which Signorini chia,'" Problemi di estetica, Bari, 1910, 236f. would later assign to the death of the rnacchia movement, the in- .. '1'!:1 I• ... ~ ,.~ .... ¥!.. ~ c~ • ~ ..,, ';{• ;p:....

1

2

1 · , French Soldiers, oil on wood, 32 x 15.5 em. Formerly Crema, Stramezzi Collection 2. Giuseppe Abbati, Cloister, oil on cardboard, 25.2 x 19.3 em. Florence, Gal-, leria d'Arte Moderna (photo: Soprintendenza aile Gallerie, Florence) !

----.-z•lln•~-.-._._.__.._ __ ~-~------3

4

3. Giovanni Fattori, Cavalry Charge at Montebello, oil on canvas, 290 x 204 4. Giuseppe Abbati, Cloister of Santa Croce, oil on canvas, 72 x 46 em. em. , Museo Civico (photo: Betti) Giacomo and Ida Jucker Collection (photo: Ancillotti) r

5 6

7

til, 5· Vincenzo Cabianca, Florentine Storytellers of the 14th Century, oil on can­ 6. , Expulsion of the Duke of Athens from Florence, oil on canvas, vas, 147 x 100 em. Formerly Florence, Saletta Gonnelli 447 x 316 em. Florence, Galleria d'Arte Moderna (photo: Alinari)

7· Serafino De Tivoli, Landscape, oil on canvas, 66 x 50 em. Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (photo: Soprintendenza aile Gallerie, Rome) 8 9

10 11

8. Telemaco Signorini, Study at La Spezia, oil on cardboard, 13 x 13 em. 9. Telemaco Signorini, A Sunny Day in La Spezia, oil on canvas, 25.5 x 29 t Whereabouts unknown Formerly Rome, La Rocca Collection (photo: Soprintendenza aile Galler' Rome)

10. Telemaco Signorini, A Sunny Day in La Spezia, oil on canvas, 57 x 64 em. 11. Vincenzo Cabianca, Young Dante, oil on canvas, 69 x 90 em. Whereabdt Formerly Milan, Galleria Sacerdoti (photo: Perotti) unknown I,